“In 1990, Saturn’s debut year, Popular Science magazine named the company one of ‘The Year’s 100 Greatest Achievements in Science and Technology.’ ”

That’s according to one of the Web sites that revel in all things Saturn, a car that once inspired a cultlike following, now sadly diminished, much like Saturn’s sales that are down almost 60 percent on the year.

Unless a miracle occurs of the kind that’s been in woefully short supply for U.S. automakers, parent company General Motors will quit making Saturns almost immediately. By October of next year the last of its 350 dealerships will be closed and the last of 13,000 employees out on the street.

Saturn’s savior was to be automotive entrepreneur and race-car-team owner Roger Penske, who had the novel idea – for the auto industry, at least – of outsourcing production. And you would think that with all the unused production capacity and laid-off autoworkers, it was the one strategy that might have worked.

But negotiations with Renault to take over production of Saturns broke off when the board of the French company rejected the plan. GM had offered to continue building the car through 2011, but Penske did not want to buy a car company without a guaranteed source of cars.

Started in 1985 to compete with small, fuel-efficient imports, Saturn was meant to operate independently of the parent company – and for a while it did, building an enthusiastic customer base that it hosted for an annual reunion and picnic at its Spring Hill, Tenn., plant. But, to hear Saturn buffs tell it, the massive GM bureaucracy intruded more and more in the running of the company, and it was slow to introduce new models in a fast-changing market. And Saturn, with its smaller cars, faced a lot of competition. Say what you will about gas guzzlers, they have great profit margins.

Car lovers can only look at the Saturn experiment and think of what might have been. Saturn’s specialty was low-key showrooms, no-haggle pricing and obsessive customer service. The auto industry is the last industry that should have to reinvent the wheel.